The museum's origins lie in the cabinet of curiosities, the royalist, scholar and antiquarian, Elias Ashmole gave to the University of Oxford in 1677. Built into his bestowal of this gift was Ashmole's condition, according to the museum website that an institution  “dedicated to the advancement of knowledge should be built to house the collections.” Elucidating on the need for an institution to function as a home for the rarities of his own personal collections Ashmole pioneered a vision for what would become the modern museum. Inherent to this role of the institution was for the museum to become a site and center for research and learning. Acquiring his collection of antique coins, cultural artifacts, and zoological specimens Ashmole salvaged these objects with the intent that they offer intellectual value, how they were as Clifford denotes “culturally or humanly interesting” as opposed to the art museum object as beautiful, to their university viewers (Clifford, 227). This recontextualization of these objects overuses the histories of the object's production and appropriation to classify them for a new meaning (Clifford, 220). 

Yet the intellectual role these collections were intended to play can not be separated from the museum's entanglement with the identity of its collector. As Baudrillard describes “It is inevitably oneself that one collects” (Baudrillard, 12). The Ashmolean's origins in housing curiosities and introducing the idea of the museum institution locating the scientific research of such objects is inherently tied not only to the social power of Ashmole himself but of the hierarchical intellectual role of the University of Oxford.  As Clifford makes an argument for describing “Ideally the history of its own collection and display should be a visible aspect of any exhibition, the Ashmolean has dedicated a section of its display to its own history(Clifford, 229). In this specific gallery dedicated to telling the story of Ashmole and the museum's own chronology. This acknowledgement of the museum past from a personal collection to ethnographic place of study provides an engaging and crucial display of its own history invites modern viewers to see how the institution of the museum, indeed the one they are standing in, are a constructed fabrication something to be analysed and studied along with the objects held within. 

Despite its secretive nature as a University student entrance, the building, at first glance, appears as an icon of the public, free museum. Taking the normal entrance along Beaumont Street, one is immediately struck not by the building's architecture -which is not entirely visible yet- but by the column of fluttering flags bearing the words Free Admission. Financially enticing the visitor, these banners invite them to ascend a short set of steps to a large stone pavilion, from which the museum’s architectural exterior comes into full view.

The museum's façade presents an intriguing blend of historical influences, a contrast to Oxford’s strictly neoclassical and Gothic surroundings. Traditional Ionic columns stand alongside an ancient Near Eastern basket-weave design on the frieze, while Greco-Roman relief sculptures adorn the tympanum and the building’s highest arch. This architectural ambiguity reflects not only the museum’s multicultural collection of foreign objects but also the nascent ideology of multiculturalism, which, as Coombes explains, has become the “buzzword of the educational establishment” (Coombes, 57). It is this décor that welcomes guests, inviting them to participate as stakeholders in the democratization of intellect within this center for art and archaeology (Duncan and Walsh, 57). Yet, paradoxically, the very ideology of public education that enshrines the Ashmolean as free also establishes hierarchies in its use.

Upon entering the building, this hierarchy is subtly diffused by two central, perpendicular monumental corridors. These hallways house classical sculptures and classicizing architecture, inviting, as Duncan and Walsh describe, the visitor to join “along with everyone else, a ceremonial procession through the museum” (Duncan and Walsh, 53). Beyond these entrance halls, the rest of the museum follows a relatively logical chronological order. A 2009 renovation, which reorganized the museum’s spaces under the theme "crossing cultures, crossing time," disrupted the previously strict chronological layout. Ancient collections are displayed on the lower and ground floors, while the top floor houses 19th- to 21st-century art. Encouraged to stroll through the museum at their leisure, public visitors are invited to gaze upon the relics of humanity’s highest artistic achievements. On each floor, they become immersed in an art historical framework - one that, as Duncan and Walsh describe, “democratized artistic experience since, in theory, anyone could learn the system of classification and the unique characteristics attributed to each school and each master” (Duncan and Walsh, 51). The museum itself becomes an object displaying an ideology of cultural achievement and individual genius - one that each visitor, as a participant in universal history, is encouraged to claim.

If the museum itself is an object on display, then the objects within it must also be analyzed. Founded with a focus on the emerging discipline of archaeology, the Ashmolean’s collection was once shared with the Pitt Rivers Museum. Following the intellectual trends of the 19th century, the decision to divide these collections was based on a hierarchical classification of cultural objects, ranging from primitive to civilized. Objects deemed civilized -those from Europe and regions associated with the Bible (pre-Islamic Egypt and the Middle East)- were placed in the Ashmolean, while those considered less civilized -from areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, parts of Asia, and Oceania- ere collected by the Pitt Rivers Museum. This separation allowed the Ashmolean to develop into the center for art history and archaeology it is known as today, while the Pitt Rivers became classified as an ethnographic museum. Because of its association with art history, the Ashmolean has been permitted the perception of a neutral space, whereas the Pitt Rivers, albeit for good reason, remains more overtly marked by the colonial legacy of its collections.

However, while the public is guided from room to room and offered large swathes of art historical information to absorb, there are still spaces to which routine visitors are both physically and intellectually denied access. Indeed, there is a top floor of special exhibitions requiring a ticket purchase, exclusive tours led by tutors for their students, and backroom laboratories reserved for academic study. This is a place built by and for the University’s students, staff, and alumni, and it is they who, in a closer sense, experience true freedom of movement and access to the full educational resources within the museum. If, as Preziosi writes, “the modern museum is an epistemological technology,” then it becomes crucial to analyze the role of the university and other institutions of knowledge as modern intercessors between the public and their supposedly free access to information. Indeed, places such as the Ashmolean make this intercession of academic institutions abundantly clear through their privileged use by and for Oxford University students. This dynamic draws attention to the very hierarchies embedded within the museum as a machine of art historical education. The Ashmolean makes it clear that it is not enough to consider the museum solely in terms of the individual’s access to knowledge as a member of a democratic society but also brings attention to and questions the place of the educational institution's hierarchical control over the distribution of such knowledge in the first place.

Extra Information about the Ashmolean from this source: Chen, Jack. “The Museum as Object of Display: Experiencing the Ashmolean.” Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History, vol. 12, no. 3 (Nov. 2022).

The older section of the museum is named after architect Charles Robert Cockerell, who built the original Greek Revival structure in 1845 as part of the Oxford University Galleries. This structure was created following the invention of the gallery space to house the university's expanding collection of educational works of art. (This coincided with the creation of the Pitt Rivers Museum as a holding place for ethnographic artifacts.) (Duncan, 5). The layout of this space consists of small, enclosed display rooms branching off from two long, rectangular reception galleries. These apse-like halls, which the viewer first encounters, contain small circular niches where ancient Greek and Roman sculptures are placed on spaced-out podiums. Walking the few steps between these statues encourages a slow, meditative pace, inviting "visual contemplation," as Duncan describes (Duncan, 19). As the museum's entrance hallways, these sculpture halls welcome visitors into a liminal space, where they are encouraged to adopt an objective, rational perspective toward the objects before them (Duncan, 18). Beyond these hallways, the older gallery spaces follow the organizational principles Greenhill describes: “Classification in the museum has taken place within an ethos of obviousness” (Greenhill, 5). The smaller attached galleries unfold in chronological order, adhering to the intellectual rationale of art history. In offering visitors a space for intellectual contemplation, the Cockerell Building of the Ashmolean achieved what Duncan identifies as the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century museum’s intent: “to enlighten and improve its visitors morally, socially, and politically” (Duncan, 16).

While the museum underwent renovations in the early twenty-first century, its remodel still adheres to the central aim of “offer[ing] up values and beliefs -about social, sexual, and political identity- in the form of vivid and direct experience” (Duncan, 2). Indeed, such values have simply been architecturally reconstructed for modern audiences in the name of further democratizing the viewer’s ‘direct and vivid’ experience.

This remodel achieved its goals by redesigning the older museum’s layout to create more “space, light, and clarity for the collections and exhibitions,” according to the architect’s website. This was made possible by improving accessibility - both in terms of physical movement, through widened spaces between display cases, the addition of elevators, and bridges connecting different gallery spaces, as well as through conceptual accessibility, by restructuring the way exhibits are presented. Additionally, a new central staircase was added alongside a wide, open central space that serves as the core of the museum’s rear galleries. To enhance natural light, a large roof window was installed at the top of this central open space, allowing light to filter vertically through the building to the lower ground level via interconnecting, double-height galleries, all painted in a neutral white color. In terms of clarity, the museum maintained its previous chronological floor order but, according to the architect’s website, introduced new “thematic galleries that showcase the connections and diversity of human cultures across time and geography.” These gallery spaces, while retaining the same objects housed in the museum’s previous layout, were reconfigured to emphasize how different cultures created objects in dialogue with one another - framing the old chronological order within the multicultural and postcolonial logic in which modern museums now operate (Mason, 30).

The current layout of the museum, in its attempt to “unify the entire museum and collection in a coherent manner,” invites visitors to continue buying into the centuries-old beliefs of the museum as an idolized space of intellectual learning, now presented in a newly modernized diversity based rationale form. The white, elongated walls of the new gallery spaces and the crisscrossing clear bridges function in many ways simply as a regurgitation of the social values the museum has always stood for as it reinforces the visitor’s capacity to engage with its carefully controlled layout and display of objects as part of formulating the viewer's belief in the mythology of a heightened modern, secular rationality.

Architects Statement: https://micaarchitects.com/projects/ashmolean-museum

Different galleries help orient viewers within the museum’s categorization system. Time-based galleries progress from room to room in chronological order, establishing a historical narrative that presents the evolution of artistic developments across centuries in a logical, linear sequence. At the same time, style-based galleries also contribute to this historical narrative by demonstrating artistic continuity through the grouping of artifacts with similar typological characteristics. By employing a visually explanatory exhibition system, the gallery spaces reinforce a collective understanding of the diverse artistic heritage available for public appreciation.

Yet, the Ashmolean contrasts with Pilgrim’s theory that Northern European museums have moved away from organizing exhibitions by type and material (Pilgrim, 6). In fact, the Ashmolean has consistently maintained exhibitions centered on precisely these categorizations, and today, they remain among the museum's most engaging displays. The museum hosts a variety of galleries that explore connections across cultures by showcasing objects related to money, textiles, reading and writing, and conservation. These collections present a universal narrative of human interaction with objects over time and across geographical boundaries.

The enduring success of such exhibitions may stem from their ability to function without a singular narrative - an idea that Heckscher highlights in the American context, where the Met’s period rooms were designed to “tell the American story” (Heckscher, 161). Situated in a city that is itself an artifact of British history, the Ashmolean may not have felt the same need to construct explicit narratives of British identity for its visitors. This also aligns with the museum’s historical role as an educational institution. Unlike American museums, which Heckscher describes as needing to "bring together under one roof American paintings and sculpture (which had never had permanent galleries of their own)" (Heckscher, 173), the Ashmolean’s purpose was never to shape a new national identity. Instead, its mission was to collect and categorize a rapidly expanding colonial inventory for British scholarly observation.

In this context, the narrative of Britishness was embedded in the sheer breadth and intellectual framing of the collection rather than in an explicitly curated national identity. What is missing from these narratives, however, is an acknowledgment of how the Ashmolean’s role as a “global museum” is itself a Western, British construct. By positioning itself as a center for world knowledge, the museum has obscured its own historical complicity in shaping and benefiting from colonialist ideologies.

Museums, at their core, are visual spaces where the presentation of material objects serves as a physical stimulus for the human eye. However, the origins of placing value on the visual presentation of cultural artifacts trace back to one of the most violent periods in contemporary history: the nineteenth-century colonial British Empire. During its expansion, numerous territories were violently dismantled and incorporated into British control. In interactions between indigenous communities and foreigners, objects were often traded between the two groups -sometimes due to complex intertribal warfare within these communities- or simply looted and taken by the British (Hicks 2020, 5).

With a myriad of new cultural objects arriving from the colonies to the British mainland, the field of ethnography emerged in the mid-nineteenth century as a discipline to understand and, in turn, make these objects palpable to the predominantly male British middle-class public. This transformation of interest manifested in the presentation of non-Western visual culture as "artifacts" - material objects to be mounted in glass cases and studied (Woods). Objects brought back from punitive expeditions found their way into Oxford University's museums. This history of Oxford’s ties to British colonialism has been complicitly inherited by the Ashmoleans today.

Yet in the past few decades, there have been increasing calls for Oxford’s museums, the Pitt Rivers and the Ashmolean, to revisit their spaces and collecting practices with renewed attention to their colonial pasts. A surge in these calls to decolonize the museum was spurred in 2020 in Oxford by demands for the removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes outside Oriel College (Rhodes managed the British colonial empire in South Africa and, by Oriel College’s own designation, was a committed colonialist). The Rhodes Must Fall movement also turned its attention to the collecting practices of the university’s museums, which are directly linked to Victorian Britain’s imperial conquests, as well as criticizing the way these artifacts have been exhibited and labeled.

While much attention has been paid to the Pitt Rivers Museum as one of the largest anthropology museums in the world, fewer calls for action have been made against the Ashmolean. Perhaps this is due to the perceived division between the two museums’ collections: the Pitt Rivers focusing on ethnographic material and the Ashmolean on aesthetic objects, which are, in turn, considered more neutral. Regardless, the two museums -once part of a joint collection- have both faced calls to return artifacts to their places of origin. (To me, it still seems unclear exactly how the distinction between the two collections is made,  perhaps the university simply has such a vast collection that it is difficult to disentangle.)

The Ashmolean Museum's 2020 collections policy, referring to the repatriation of colonial material, states that "the director, following the university policy, together with national and international legislation, will take decisions on the repatriation of such material on a case-by-case basis" (Collections Policy).

In August 2022, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge agreed to repatriate more than 200 Benin Bronze items after Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments submitted a formal claim. This agreement included the return of 97 objects from the Pitt Rivers and Ashmolean Museum collections (Cherwell). However, in the past three years, there has been no further update on the fate of these objects. If repatriated, this would likely mark the largest return of Benin artifacts from the UK (Cherwell).

After becoming aware of provenance issues through an independent scholar in 2019, the recent discussion of repatriating a 16th-century Indian bronze currently held at the Ashmolean Museum reflects the long and complicated nature of this process (Cherwell). Although there was no initial claim against the object, the museum brought the matter to the attention of the Indian High Commission in December 2019, requesting any further information that could help establish the object's provenance (Cherwell).

Then, in March 2020, the Indian High Commission formally claimed the bronze. The museum had to wait for a final report from the Archaeological Survey of India before submitting the claim to the museum’s trustees. Ultimately, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford was responsible for deciding whether the object would be returned under the university’s Procedures for the Return of Cultural Objects.

In March 2024, the Council of the University of Oxford supported the Indian High Commission’s claim for the return of the bronze. As of December 2024, the Charity Commission for England and Wales has authorized its return to India. According to the Ashmolean’s press release, the museum "has contacted the Indian High Commission in London and is currently awaiting a response on the next steps." After nearly seven years, the Indian bronze finally seems to be on track for repatriation.

While the process of repatriation is long and intricate, there do seem to be active efforts across the university to address these issues. The museum’s willingness to engage in dialogue about its harmful past reflects a long-overdue first step toward redress.

However, while the museum proclaims an openness to discussing its colonial past within its museological setting, numerous issues remain unresolved- including the lack of diversity within the university’s student body. In recent decades, headlines have still marked the first acceptances of Indigenous students from formerly colonized nations, suggesting that much more structural work is needed. Beyond repatriation, the university must also engage in broader conversations about who has access to education in the first place.

https://www.ashmolean.org/files/ashmoleancollectionspolicyjanuary2020pdf

https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2024/06/ashmolean-awaits-decision-on-return-of-indian-sculpture/

https://www.cherwell.org/2022/11/29/special-report-have-you-come-to-see-the-shrunken-heads-university-museums-face-decolonisation-pressure/#:~:text=The%20Universities%20of%20Oxford%20and%20Cambridge%20agreed,the%20Pitt%20Rivers%20and%20Ashmolean%20Museum%20collections.

https://www.ashmolean.org/press/statement-on-indian-bronze-press-release

In thought, the museum’s history lends itself to an attempt at decolonization. A line at the top of the museum’s self-descriptive history reflects the need to decolonize thought, as it reads: 'Though the collection has evolved considerably, the founding principle remains: that knowledge of humanity across cultures and across times is important to society. A laudable intention, but the uncomfortable truth is that much of the collection was inevitably selected and obtained as a result of colonial power.' In short, one cannot think of the collections within the museum without addressing colonialism. As it has become increasingly common for modern visitors to consider colonialism in museum spaces -especially after movements such as Rhodes Must Fall and the negative attention on the British Museum’s repatriation efforts (or lack thereof)- this kind of explicit acknowledgment of colonialism has become more prevalent. This engagement with colonial thought can be seen in the museum’s self-description, which references colonialism in relation to its history more than four times. Yet, even as this statement admits to the role of colonialism, it disregards its continued perpetuation in the very idea of preserving 'knowledge of humanity' as a universally important pursuit—thus reflecting colonial thinking once again. This connects to Tuck’s argument that there is a need to 'make transparent the coloniality of academic knowledge' (Tuck 243). Simply acknowledging discomfort with the acquisition of objects through colonial power does little to address the continued reliance on colonial academic knowledge as the ultimate value system.

Another aspect of the museum’s attempts to alter its curatorial practices emerges in language. Within the museum’s layout, language has removed the West as the center of historical narratives. The second-floor gallery, as I have mentioned before, best reflects this in its use of 'East meets West,' revealing the multiplicity of history - showing that these objects emerged not simply from Western creativity and discovery but through influence and interconnection with other cultures. This challenges traditional gallery narratives that choose to present a singular culture and history. Another way the museum creates alternative dialogues is through a project called Voices in the Gallery, where University of Oxford students write gallery labels for objects. These labels reflect a range of different student backgrounds, from pre-med students to Muslim students from Queen Mary University of London, who have been invited to write their own labels, expressing their personal interpretations and responses to the objects. These labels allow students to bring their diverse personal experiences and perspectives into the gallery space -one where such inclusion is often denied.

Finally, the museum claims its practices have changed. Indeed, as the website indicates, there are numerous references to research opportunities connected to decolonization. In the space of the museum, this type of research is crucial, as Tuck notes - it may seem like 'just one form of knowing, but in the Western academy, it eclipses all others' (237).

Adding new perspectives and opportunities to further investigate the remnants of colonialism is an important effort by the museum to encourage more learning on this topic. At the same time, as Tuck notes, there is perhaps still an issue with working within this Western system of knowledge, in which Oxford remains deeply entrenched. While this is an important critique of the system, I believe concerns about working within structures of oppression should not overshadow the value of research being conducted on these topics. If this reflects larger structural problems with our knowledge systems, then the only way to disrupt them is, in part, from within. This is not to say that the museum has done enough to resolve its past dilemmas, but rather to acknowledge that any effort toward redress is a positive step.

Overall, I think the museum has taken positive steps toward creating alternatives to colonial curatorial practices through its dedicated attention to thinking, language, and practices. This specific approach allows the museum to focus on particular issues within its collection and incorporate new perspectives regarding these ideas. The effects of these efforts can also be felt within the museum, as the institution seems aware that its viewers may bring these critiques forward and has a ready explanation of its actions to create alternatives. While I believe there is always more to be done, I recognize these efforts as a first step toward decolonization.

As you enter the gallery on the museum's first floor, the space winds around cabinets, wall hangings, and islands with children's activities that populate the space. Stepping further into the gallery I was immediately struck by a peculiar sight: two mock replica eagle heads of the original Assyrian protective spirit that guards the museum desk in its main hallway. Here, one replica stands glistening white, meticulously detailed, while the other, directly opposite, has been slashed, its details destroyed to the point that the wall is visible through the hard stone. Nearing closer to read the informative plaque, I learned that this destruction was intentional, a part of the destruction at the Mosul Museum in Iraq enacted by the Islamic State between 2014 and 2017. This replication of destruction is juxtaposed with a display of artistic recreation positioned directly to the left. It’s hard not to be distracted by the flashing colors and shifting text of the gallery's projected re-coloration of two bas-reliefs from the Assyrian palace at Nimrud. These two reliefs are accompanied by a text that narrates, almost like a film, how these images, in their original brightly colored form, depict the forced movement of people by the empire. The projection ends hauntingly with a singular final line that reads, “The forced movement of people still resonates today.” Not only is this stone visually brought to life but it is encroached into contemporary lives as it forces the audience to engage with the subject of forced migration not simply as a disconnected historical topic, but as a living, repeated phenomenon. Complicating the complicity of the audience this exhibition challenges, as Gonzalez “the comfortable distance between the art object and the culture from which it was removed” forcing the viewer to think about movement and destruction of artifacts (Gonzalez, 69). 

With the viewer's mind stimulated, you then turn to immerse yourself in the early history of the Middle Eastern region through brightly lit exhibitions and thoughtfully curated plaques, some with accompanying drawings or videos explaining each object's historical significance. It would be almost impossible to walk through this space without being stopped by the children's activities that form the center of the gallery’s three connecting rooms. These stations each offer hands-on activities, a creative element, and visual recordings that bring to life some of the most engaging aspects of the collections, from the myths depicted to the creation of writing and the different stone materials used. These activities while for children break up the viewer's interaction with the ancient artifacts surrounding them as they are allowed to directly engage with the works from the equal standpoint of youth education. 

Finally, as you make your way to the exit of the gallery space -which, as I discovered, leads directly to the main hall where the exit is located- you encounter another instance of contemporary historical relevance. This section, which serves as the entrance for most museum guests who didn't enter via the exit as I did, features another video presentation. This introduction narrates the historical region covered by the gallery but goes beyond that to address what is often left out in museum spaces: the inability to tell a complete history of a region so vast and exploited by Western knowledge and claims of ownership. A case standing next to the projector, and likely the first one that attracts viewers' attention, presupposes the rest of the exhibition by attempting to shed light on and address the colonialism and collecting practices that enabled the Ashmolean to assemble its collection (Gonzalez, 68). This introduction, through its acknowledgment of these issues, invites the viewer to experience the rest of the collection's interwoven history through what the artifacts themselves have to say. In this dialogue between color, exhibition display, and the interplay of past and present, the art in this gallery is not static. Instead, it speaks and tells stories not only of the past and its people but also of today, highlighting how this ancient history continues to impact our contemporary realities.

Perhaps the fact that the name is now scarce - if noticed at all - is a testament to the efforts to disavow the family and their role in an epidemic estimated to have claimed more than half a million lives since 1999. For a university that once received between $12 million and $19 million in donations from the Sacklers and affiliated organizations, according to the university, public disavowal did not come easily. Over the years, as the university maintained ties with the family, new buildings emerged and positions were created in their name - from the Sackler Rome Gallery and the Sackler Gallery of Life After Death in Ancient Egypt, to the Sackler Keeper of Antiquities, the Sackler Library, and the Sackler-Clarendon Associate Professorship of Sedimentary Geology. Even as students called for change and other museums removed the name from their gallery walls, Oxford’s remnants of the Sacklers remained. For years, it was Oxford that bucked the trend of cutting ties with the family, continuing to court them and even extending invitations to a Sackler family member. This warm welcome spanned the period during which the family was negotiating a multibillion-dollar bankruptcy settlement.

Of course, Oxford’s compliance with the Sackler family did not go uncriticized by students, who called on the university to disconnect from the family and remove its name. Finally, in 2023, the university complied, cutting its ties with the Sacklers almost everywhere the name had been displayed.

In an official memo, the university noted that the Sackler name would remain on the Clarendon Arch and on the Ashmolean Museum’s donor board, for the sake of “preserving historical record.” While the family’s name was taken down in all meaningful ways possible, there is still something unsettling about the permanence of its presence - still ruminating around the university if you know where to look.

Indeed, this removal was largely symbolic: a visual erasure, a cleansing of the museum and its association with the art world that once benefited from the Sacklers’ goodwill. In the same statement, the university said it would keep the donations it received from the Sackler family and their trusts “for their intended educational purposes.” However, no new donations had been received from the family since January 2019.

By separating from the Sackler name while retaining the funds, the university attempted to distance itself from the family’s bad publicity - continuing, nonetheless, to benefit from money tied to the deaths of thousands lost to the opioid crisis. This relationship between Oxford and the Sacklers presents a conflicted space of corporate sponsorships. After all, for years it was rather helpful - for the students using the library and the public visiting the museum - to have such funds readily flowing in. Even after the name is gone, its legacy not only remains but continues to further Oxford’s educational mission.

https://news.artnet.com/art-world-archives/oxford-university-drops-the-sackler-name-after-review-2302631

https://www.ashmolean.org/press/sackler-statement-may-2023-press-release

 https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/oxford-university-ashmolean-museum-sackler-family-opioids-1234668349/

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/16/world/europe/oxford-sackler.html